greece never made it on its own anyways. edmond about (french economist) had chronicled greek mismanagement over the last centuries back in 1857 (!) already. the same malaise, the same attitude, the same crooks. people shouldn't wonder why the downward spiral hit greece worst, but why the downward spiral has for some reason missed greece for such a long time. needless to say things apparently haven't improved at all.

we should stop talking greece. european cancer has a name: switzerland. i ain't surprised by these numbers. france, italy and germany need to get to work and start partitioning so that non-country cannot destroy the fabric of europe any longer.

Rrrainer: If and when an EU federation comes into existence (which I don't think is possible within the current structure*) then the Swiss will be powerless to ignore joining it.

*You can't build a system around getting everyone to join then start establishing structure. Structure needs to be established before other nations can join. The opt-outs in the treaties are what's really hurting the EU.

All this is in my view, is the world finding an economic balance. Is the economic mosaic pieces of the world coming together. Let's talk about the last century, you have the US coming down as a world sole super power, almost in an unbalanced way, based on mostly to the right policies, free market, little regulation etc. that worked well because the US was ahead of the curve having a diverse society, being a free, secular and stable economy, but now, as a lot of the world have been getting its act together for example, the BRICS and a lot of Asia, many South American countries, is just becoming harder and harder for the US to keep this unregulated wild capitalistic free for all mindset. The world is becoming more and more heterogeneous and competitive.

What a worker can do in the US for a great wage 20 years ago, so it can be done now in Brazil, India, Korea, Argentina etc. Combine that with George W. Bush waging costly and prolonged wars, so has the US is come down a as the sole super power that it was to becoming a powerful player noways. Still the biggest, but one of them. Important distinction.

Europe on the other hand, its economic halt has come from the opposite approach of the US, because of its to the left, heavy socialist policies that are unsustainable in some countries that have no business spending as much as to try and have a heterogeneous social condition across Europe. For example, the Government of Greece to try and be on the same social level playing field as Germany, it just doesn't add up. So we have this situation of unbalance, debt. etc. that will need to be balance it out.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned several other countries have got their act together around the world. The country that I can speak better about, Brazil. It is a young country relatively speaking and always had amazing potential. Brazil is as diverse as the US, colonized by Europeans from Portuguese, Italians to Germans, Spaniards. To Japanese (largest Japanese population outside of Japan) to Africans, Native Indians etc. combined with having been a stable democracy for now over 20 years, so it is starting to bloom economically, although there is much work to be done. Being a country of around 190 Million people, diverse and Heterogeneous with vast natural resources, its just starting to fill its potential and so it is happening with India, China, other S. America countries like Colombia and Peru. South Africa etc. The rest of Africa is still to come in a big way.

This all the world finding a balance, the countries that were far ahead are slowing down, as others are catching up, as it were. I know it must suck for a European nowdays in some senses, but you have to see the bigger picture, I really doubt Europe or the US will regress economically and culturally significantly, but it will need to balance it out with other players across the world. I believe, let say in 50 years time, the economic landscape of the world will be much more balanced and heterogeneous than it was in the 1990 for example, at the height of US and Europe economical powers and that is a pretty good thing, is it not.

The United States´ problems are not pimarily due to increased global competition, the deregulationary policies they have implemented since the 1980´s have caused a lot of severe internal problems for the US. You need to look up the primary reasons of the recession in the US ( housing bubble, financial derivatives etc). Nothing to do with increased global competition, even if China is a big issue for them nowadays as well.

As for Europe, it has no "heavy, socialist policy", it still consists of independent countries. The issues that got Greece into the whole mess are not "trying to be on the same level as Germany", it´s way deeper than that. Those are also the reasons Greece should never have been accepted to EU, but now that they have, it´s a mess that involves the whole Europe.